Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Somehow Douglas Adams + Neil Gaiman doesn’t work

Don't Panic by Neil Gaiman

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On the surface, this book was made for me. A biography of Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as taken down by Neil Gaiman. It was like someone reached into my head and wrote out my wildest dreams. And look at that cover! I am so easily sold with a good cover, y’all. There is so much that this book could have been and yet it wasn’t. I just didn’t feel this book. I appreciated Gaiman writing about Adams in the style of […]

Magically Disturbed

Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions by Neil Gaiman

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For years I’ve had issues with short story collections. The whipping from one plot to another so quickly makes my brain feel like it’s on a very shaky roller coaster. But it’s the genre my mentor most likes to teach, so I’ve found myself reading a lot of it lately. Thanks to his patience, I have a newfound understanding of the short story, and decided to start off the year by revisiting the first short story collection I ever finished, Neil Gaiman’s “Smoke and Mirrors.” […]

2nd Bingo!

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In preparation for the upcoming new Amazon series, I decided to reread “Good Omens.” It’s probably been about a decade since I picked this up the first time, and while there were many parts that I thoroughly re-enjoyed, there were other parts that let me down. And not because it’s bad, but just because we’re getting farther and farther away from many of the contemporary nuances and details that were hilarious in the 2000s. Sadly, as time marches on, much of the ironic nuance in […]

A wonderfully childlike story

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This book is straight-up magical. I’ve read it before, I think right around the time I first got a kindle, and I’ve seen (and loved) the movie and yet somehow I let this story fall by the wayside. But the audiobook fell into my lap and it seemed like a perfect Bingo choice and I am so grateful for all of these elements that brought Coraline back into my life. Neil Gaiman has brought this little girl to life in spectacular fashion. The book is written […]

The best way to exist in a story

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I got the okay on this one on Twitter but mods please let me know if it doesn’t count. I didn’t listen to the audiobook of Neverwhere but rather the BBC’s radio play adaptation – the one with McAvoy and Dormer? It’s basically the greatest. So the gist of Neverwhere is: everyman Richard Mayhew accidentally stumbles into London Below, a society made up of the people London Above forgot, with danger at every turn. He is sucked into a mission to protect the Lady Door from assassins and […]

CBR Bingo: White Whale

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I feel like I am going to catch some grief for having Good Omens as my White Whale but I purchased it in November of last year and started it three times before finally completing the whole thing while on the beach last week. Unfortunately I was also drinking rum cocktails while I read so I may be a little foggy on the complete story. Good Omens is quite the literary achievement; the two authors, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, have a seamless flow and you never get the […]



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